


Bogus!

by Superstition_hockey



Series: Pee-Wee League [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Bill and Ted's Excellent Linguistic Influence, Gibbs Free Energy, Hockey, M/M, Math, Miscommunication, Vaguely Implied Slander To Engineers, Very hazy defining of the future, Yemanja, accidental sugar daddy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 12:13:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16241399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superstition_hockey/pseuds/Superstition_hockey
Summary: Anyway, Jimmy and Mavs have never met but they agree about most things: like the fact that their research project should be about Ching Shih, the bodacious pirate lady, and also that pink Starbursts are the best, and that the only good movies are art heists or rockumentaries.





	Bogus!

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the year 2065 (ish?) where everyone (Mavs) talks like Bill and Ted, Catarina Jackson-Chantal Teixeira is Captain Canada, and everyone’s favorite little brother, Mavs, is terrorizing a physics professor. This fic was titled “Mavericks Teixeira, Accidental Sugar Daddy” in my google docs but it could have been called “When are we going to be done with this terrible part of the timeline, and move on to the part in Bill and Ted where everyone wears silver robes and greets each other by gentle air guitar gestures and saying “Be Excellent To Each Other and Party On Dudes”?”

The thing is. The thing is that the whole thing totally has the most odious undertones of capitalist oppression bullshit and Mavs is not that dude, right, like his mom has a RAtM tattoo, he’s from _Quebec_. He’s totally a democratic socialist. Or whatever. Probably? He might have to ask his accountant.

But it’s like, he _has_ money because of the whole _hockey_ thing and that’s whatever; he doesn’t not like having money, but he also doesn’t not like _giving_ people money. 

Not in a gnarly sex way, but maybe kind of in a gnarly feelings way? You know, be excellent to each other or whatever. Mavs likes being excellent to people. Being excellent to each other is totally a foundational block in the structure of Mavs’... heart-soul-thing? Wherever it is that people that think Cartesian duality is a thing that’s not hilariously wrong think souls live. Metaphorically. 

In a way, the whole thing only started because Mavs wasn’t sure if he gave enough of a shit to go to the combine. On the one hand, _hockey_. On other hand, sometimes hockey is _way_ bogus. Some days hockey is most excellent and some other days Mavs remembers how shredded Hank was -- not just in his ankle but in his _feelings_ \-- after his accident and how Mavs vowed to himself he was always going to remember that there’s totally other excellent things in the world besides the NHL. And, yeah, maybe he wants to play hockey, but also maybe he wants to go to Europe for a while? Mavs likes those little coffees. Also Mags said he should come with them on their backpacking trip through the Andes, and Mavs totally still kind of regrets not going with them because Mags’ photojournal was _most bodacious_.

Also college? 

Harvard was all, “You should totally come here, bro,” and Mavs had been all, “Yo, you know I was in the Q right? I can’t NCAA?” and Harvard was all, “Nah, my dude, come learn about entropy.” And, like… Mavs almost did?

But in the end, Mavs can just read books about entropy anywhere and there’s really only one way to get to hold the Cup again. 

But anyway, he _digresses_. 

Hockey is totally a business and the business of hockey is full of mostly heinous old dickweeds who care about money a lot and make all sorts of equally heinous decisions because of money and lots of them love to remember (loudly, publically) that Mavs almost didn’t go to the combine and instead almost went on a righteous adventure of self-discovery in the Andes (conveniently they always seem to remember whenever his +/- dips a little below where it usually hovers), and Mavs _tried_ to explain to them about entropy and disorder and how no one in the NHL uses stats right at all, and also just the basic concepts of a linear regression, but no one ever listens to him about that, and so sometimes it’s just nice to wander around the city and look at people and think about wave patterns, or pet friendly dogs, and _also_ just because he went through with the draft doesn’t mean he can’t also go to college (!!), a thing he figures out a few years into his time in Washington, which is totally how he winds up doing one class a semester online. His advisor keeps trying to get him to stay and also do classes and research in the summer, and Mavs had to explain, most sternly, that the summer is for _surfing_ and that’s he’s not staying in Washington DC and loitering around Georgetown, which is basically built on a humid, gnarly old swamp that personifies the word “fetid” -- both physically and _metaphorically_ \-- when he could totally be in Tahiti or back home in Madeira, where people are nice and no one cares how long his hair is. 

Mags says Mavs can’t really be a socialist because his family has a summer home on an island, but that sounds bogus. What does Mags know anyway? His parents are from Vancouver. 

So. Right. Odious Capitalist undertones. 

Jimmy. 

The second class Mavs takes is this fall semester’s Intro to Asian History class, where even though it’s online, they have to have “research partners.” Mavs is… probably not the best research partner. Not because he doesn’t want to be! But hockey is just this huge thing that takes all his time, and he has to go stand in front of cameras all the time, and remember that when journos ask him if he felt like the D-corp “gave their 110% tonight,” he’s not allowed to say “that’s mathematically impossible,” because Anna, Ms. PR lady, told him it makes people think he’s not “committed” and instead he has to say “for sure” and then say something nice about something one of the boys did during the game, and then he has to try not to laugh because that’s the type of stuff he and Bells always used to say in fake media voices to chirp their dads, not something people just say _for real_. It’s totally easy, but it takes _time_ , and then all the other time that’s not hockey or cameras, it’s always “for the boys” this (which is most excellent of course) and “COD night” that, and mostly Mavs does his work for the class when they’re on the plane, or in his hotel room, but that’s only when he doesn’t get distracted and forget and play gin rummy with Colts for two hours when he should be doing his reading, or spend his time figuring out how to rig the toilet so that it sprays water in Miami’s face and then get chased down the hall by Miami and get into a most outstanding wrestling match and then have to apologize to the nice hotel people and promise to pay for the broken vase thing in the hall. 

Anyway, Jimmy and Mavs have never met but they agree about most things: like the fact that their research project should be about Ching Shih, the bodacious pirate lady, and also that pink Starbursts are the best, and that the only good movies are art heists or rockumentaries. 

Mavs doesn’t get to meet Jimmy until after midterms, when Mavs finally has a string of home games and off days that line up enough with Jimmy’s schedule that they can actually meet in person in a library. 

It takes Mavs forever to find the library, and then even longer to figure out where to put his car because he can’t find a valet parking area anywhere, and then he’s faced with a most perplexing conundrum because he definitely needs to get coffee. But also he is already late. But he is definitely going to get coffee. But he doesn’t want to be even more late. That seems most egregious. Mavs decides that he will just also get Jimmy coffee too, and then Jimmy won’t be mad at him for being late. 

Jimmy is easy to find because he told Mavs what he looks like -- lightish brown hair, medium height, purple hoodie, sitting at a table on the second floor near the maps. Jimmy looks most annoyed and keeps looking at his watch but Mavs puts his coffee down in front of him and says, “I think I remembered you said you liked mochas, this is okay, right? I got you a muffin too.” 

Jimmy gives this reluctant little smile and goes pink at the top of his cheeks and Mavs _likes it_. None of Jimmy’s descriptions mentioned what a _babe_ he was. You’d think he could have warned a dude. Jimmy tries to stand up and shake his hand when he says, “Hey, I’m Jimmy it’s nice to finally meet you in person,” but Mavs feels strongly about la bise, or like, beijinho, really, (because people always forget Mavs is Brazilian too -- except for when the people that are still pouting about the combine remember and bring it up as a reason why he might not _care enough_ about Hockey Canada), and anyway, why would you shake someone’s hand when you can kiss them? Hand shaking is weird and for Americans in khakis and sport coats, and Georgetown is full of those kinds of Americans and it is both way boring and also the most tedious. 

 

After the time in the library, it’s definitely easier to remember to email Jimmy back about the research project because if he does the reading he can sneak some excellent flirting into his paragraph outlines and also Mavs always remembers now to stop and get coffee for both of them whenever they meet up. Just because he likes the surprised little smile Jimmy gets whenever he hands him a scone or whatever. Mavs likes Jimmy’s smile, his nerdy corduroy pants, the way his glasses sit on his nose, the way he moves his hands when he gets really worked up on a topic, even the way he looks with his nose scrunched up, like he’s trying not to chirp Mavs for his music choices. 

The fourth time they get together to work on their project, Mavs suggests they meet at his apartment instead. Mavs orders Thai and introduces Jimmy to the boys and Miami says, “So this is the guy you keep ditching us for?” and Mavs says, “Jimmy is a gentleman and a scholar and we’re going to go to do scholarly things now.” 

They get all the way through the Pad Thai and three-quarters through editing the final draft of their project -- when Mavs totally gets tired of waiting and kisses him. Jimmy tastes like peanut sauce and limes, and his mouth is soft against Mavs’, even when he pushes Mavs over onto his back and kisses back, grinning. They spend the next twenty or so minutes frotting, breath shuddering against each other’s necks, coming in each other’s hands, and then take a quick a fifteen-minute power nap before finishing the project up in between kisses. Jimmy, flushed, sweaty and glowy after sex is a good look. 

It’s all _way_ stellar, and then Mavs calls a car, so Jimmy doesn’t have to walk the fifteen blocks back to his campus so late, and when Mavs comes back from walking him out, Colts slaps him on the back and says, “So how did it go with the ‘scholarly things’?” 

“Most triumphantly.” Mavs smiles, and gets himself a glass of water. 

 

At the end of the semester Mavs insists on taking Jimmy out to dinner to celebrate 1) their totally victorious research project of awesome success and 2) Jimmy totally graduated! He’d been taking his history requirement his last semester along with senior seminar and two 400 level sociology classes.

After dinner Mavs gives Jimmy his graduation present. 

“Oh, wow.” Jimmy says, looking into the case, “this looks like a really nice watch.”

“It’s a Breguet,” Mavs agrees, “I thought you might like that more than something like an Audemars? It’s totally got that 19th century author feel, you know? It totally suits you.” 

“Mavs, you didn’t need to… I mean, this is really nice, it’s beautiful, but I’m not… I’m just… I mean it’s just my bachelors, and I don’t …”

“Dude,” Mavs says taking his hand, “You graduated college. You get a watch. That’s what people are supposed to do.” Mavs is 100% sure people get watches when they graduate. Bells and Katya both got one. Even Hank got one when he graduated, even though Papa had given him one after the draft too. 

“Um... Mavs, really. It’s too nice.”

Mavs rolls his eyes, “That doesn’t even make sense. How can it be too nice for you? You’re like… most outstanding, my dude. And it’s for you. Therefore it is not too nice for you. Also the whole concept of something being too nice for someone has these tacit implications of material wealth being tied to inherit human value which is just… way bogus, dude.”

Jimmy take a big breath and gives him a hesitant smile. “Okay,” he says. Then he nods a little more firmly. “Okay.” 

 

 

Later they walk back to Mavs’ apartment and Jimmy says, “So when do you graduate?”

Mavs laughs. “Not for years probably.”

Jimmy scrunches his nose. “Aren’t you signed up for some upper-level physics classes next semester?”

“Just one. I’m just taking one class a semester.”

“Oh…. I didn’t… I guess you mentioned working, but I hadn’t really thought about it. I don’t even… What do you do?”

“Ummmmm...” Mavs says, because he didn’t realize Jimmy didn’t know who he was. He’d never mentioned it because he’d never really… everyone always knows who he is. It’s kind of a gnarly sensation just being totally unknown. It’s not bad though. “I… play for the Caps.” Mavs says, “I thought you knew, dude.”

“The Washington Capitals. The hockey team.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re a professional athlete, who’s just… taking classes at Georgetown for what… for funsies? You just really wanted to learn about 19th century eastern Asia?”

“Well I mean that was my three Eastern culture and history credits I totally needed to get out of the way.” 

“Right….” Jimmy says. 

 

The next morning when Mavs wakes up Jimmy is sitting with his back against the headboard, drinking a coffee. 

“I read your Wikipedia article.”

“No way?” Mavs grunts, because he’s still half asleep and no one has given him any coffee. Also, it seems pretty early for someone to have to wake up on a mandatory rest day. 

“And then I read your _family’s_ Wikipedia page.

“Bogus.”

“Your family has a Wikipedia page. There’s a quiz online to tell which one of you I might be.” 

“I wouldn’t trust it, I got Sasha.” 

“Your dads are Luc Chantal and Oliver Jackson. Even I know about them and I know nothing about hockey except that Wayne Gretzky guy had a mullet and somehow you’re still allowed to punch people. Which seems monumentally stupid, by the way.” 

“Punching people on ice is totally part of our rich Canadian history.”

“Your entire family is some sort of eerily amazing Olympic superhumans.”

Mavs rolls over and scrunches his face into the pillow. “No way. Plus Bells has totally never been in the Olympics.”

“The fact that you can only mention one sibling in your entire, convoluted, bewildering large family of excessively rich and talented overachievers doesn’t really help your argument.”

“She doesn’t even play a sport. I think she managed a club rugby team when she was in college, but that was just for extracurriculars. And also, I only have a silver.” 

“Mavs.” 

“Wouldn’t it be better if instead of talking about my family, we were having sex?” Mavs suggests. 

Jimmy’s skin is cool from where he’s sitting above the covers, but his fingers are warm from the coffee mug. Mavs slides his hand along Jimmy’s thigh enjoying where Jimmy’s hair is fine and thin there, blond and almost invisible but still tickly under his hand. Jimmy sighs, legs falling open and tilting his hips into Mavs’ hand and Mavs puts his mouth over Jimmy’s boxers to feel Jimmy growing hard underneath the cotton, twitching against his lips. 

 

Afterwards, Mavs steals some of Jimmy’s cold coffee to get the heinous combination of morning breath and jizz out of his mouth and Jimmy curls up against his arm and says, “I looked up that watch you gave me too.”

“It’s way excellent, right? Tourbillons rotate 360 degrees per minute to counteract variation in time keeping due to gravity, the power comes through the pinon and drives the motion both of the fixed gear and the escapement.” Mavs sits up and tries to fish his tablet out from under the bed. “Check it out, I can draw you the rotational diagram, you see the force vectors cancel themselves out so you get a more accurate --” He stops when Jimmy’s hand lands on his wrist. 

“Mavs. This watch… I could sell this watch and pay off a third of my student loans.”

“Oh.” Mavs searches Jimmy’s face. “You could… I mean it’s yours. You could totally do that, dude! But it… I think the size is sort of perfect for your wrist? I made sure it was one that fits your frame and like… aesthetic? It looks… most resplendent on you, bro. Also, it's engraved.” 

Mavs had the inside engraved to say “Congratulations on a most triumphant achievement, my dude!” which he thought was pretty great. Like… poignant, you know?

“Mavs… I have… I have a bachelors in _sociology_ and a part time job at a used bookstore.” 

“Yes!” Mavs agrees. “You totally graduated! Congratulations again! And you said the bookstore was offering you full time until you found something using your degree. You're great at bookstore-ing. You know all about all the books!” 

Jimmy just sighs and shakes his head. “Thank you, I guess.”

Mavs leans over and kisses him. “What do you want to do today, I have the whole day off?”

“You haven’t looked outside yet, so you don’t know, but it started snowing last night.”

“So… you’re saying you want to get back under the covers?”

“You are impossible,” Jimmy says but he does burrow up against Mavs and pull the blankets over them. “Also, you’re not allowed to give me anymore watches for Christmas, okay?”

“Why? Were you planning on graduating university a second time next week?” 

 

 

 

Jimmy goes home to _Indiana_ for Christmas and Mavs goes back to Quebec for three days. Christmas afternoon he opens his present from Jimmy -- a hand knit toque wrapped around a used copy of The Joy of X. 

“Most unrivalved, dude, thanks!” Mavs texts Jimmy, pulling the toque over his hair, “love it.” 

“It’s not much, and I’m sure the book is sort of elementary, but…”

“No way! It’s great! Thank you!” 

A few minutes later Jimmy texts him, “I thought I told you no more ridiculous gifts.” 

Mavs… didn’t think it was a particularly ridiculous gift? It’s just... a present? For Christmas? A totally normal kind of present. He texts back: “You said no more watches. It’s just a coat. You get cold easily, and this one will look nice for interviews.” 

Jimmy doesn’t text him back immediately and Mavs doesn’t notice -- Christmas evening is the time for hot chocolate and the family game of post-Christmas dinner shinny (i.e. the only time anyone can ever convince his mom to wear ice skates, which is the most hilarious). When he takes a breather for more hot chocolate, he checks his phone and finds Jimmy had replied, “I look ridiculous wearing it in an Indiana trailer park.” He’s standing outside, in the long wool coat, looking simultaneously embarrassed and pleased. 

“You look hot, babe.” Mavs replies and then “sorry, was playing shinny.”

“I won’t keep you.” 

“Nah, I’m good. Bells and Hank are having their annual shinny fight. The rest of us just wait it out. She just threw a stick at him, so it’s probably almost over.” 

He spends the next five minutes talking to Jimmy about Indiana, and why it’s generally un-excellent (apparently that is just a general state of Indiana, in Jimmy’s opinion; Mavs has never been so he has no opinion), and also specifically un-excellent because Jimmy does not really want to be there. Bogus.

“Do you like it?” he texts about the coat, before he puts his hot chocolate downs and joins back in the game. 

Jimmy doesn’t respond until Mavs is already in bed. He just says. “Yes. thank you,” but the selfie that comes along with it has Jimmy sitting on his bed in his old bedroom, wearing the coat over his pajamas, with that same little smile on his face. 

Mavs hadn’t been thinking a lot about it when he bought the coat, just that it seemed useful and practical and that it was excellent to think about keeping Jimmy warm. But now he thinks about the stubborn half smile on Jimmy’s face in the picture, and about how the wool would start to smell like Jimmy’s cologne around the collar. It makes something warm squirm in his belly, makes him want to be the person who tucks a scarf around Jimmy’s neck before he goes out. But, he thinks it maybe makes Jimmy uncomfortable too, and that makes something less nice squirm around in his chest. He doesn’t like making people uncomfortable. He doesn’t want it to be a _thing_. He just wants to be excellent to people, in general, and Jimmy, in particular.

 

He sees Jimmy a little when he gets back -- Jimmy spends the night, lets Mavs drop him off on his way to morning skate, and Jimmy invites him out with his friends for New Year’s Eve. They pregame at Jimmy’s apartment -- Mavs has to show up a little late because they have an afternoon game, and then media, and then he has to go to Max’s thing because it would hurt Max’s feelings if he didn’t show up at all, and Mavs is not going to be the sort of odious D-man who hurts his goalie’s feelings, but Max won’t mind if he ducks out early to go Jimmy’s. He brings his NYE presents for Max and Max’s kids. Max’s wife tells him he’s “a sweet boy” when he tells her “С Новым годом, С Новым cчастьем!” and then chirps him for the Quebecois accent he can never 100% keep out of his Russian. 

By the time Max puts him in a car, he’s totally full, from Inga constantly pushing treats at him, and totally tipsy, from Max constantly topping off his champagne, and Max squeezes his shoulder and says, “Have fun with your boyfriend.” 

“He’s so cute, Max. He’s like the… most bodacious dude.” 

“Yes,” Max sighs, “so you say, often.”

Mavs pats his hand. Max is such a good goalie and it’s so important to love your goalie and protect them, which reminds him to say, “I tied Carts’ shoelaces together.”

Max grins. “You are best D-man a goalie could hope for.”

“Awww, Max.” Mavs smiles as Max pats his shoulder again and shuts the door. 

 

Jimmy and his friends are pregaming at their apartment. “Oh, hello,” Jimmy says when Mavs knocks on the door, “I see you won’t have to catch up with us. What are you _wearing_?” 

“I’m wearing my game day suit, still,” Mavs answers him, “and I brought champagne, and real vodka,” because Max tucked a bottle of Green Mark into his coat on the way out the door. 

“It’s _white_.” 

It takes Mavs a second to realize he means his suit, not the drinks. “It’s New Year’s! Feliz Ano Novo! Bonne année! С Новым годом!” He kisses Jimmy on both cheeks as he sets his bottles down in the kitchen. 

It’s an excellent night: they go downtown to dance. Jimmy wears his new coat with black jeans and a lot of gold glitter and Mavs gets bottle service for them and spends half the night dancing and the other half making out with Jimmy on his lap on one of the club's couches. 

It’s nearly three when they finally leave, and Mavs asks the cab driver if he can take them to Waterfront Park in Georgetown. 

“Why are we going there? I want bed, or hashbrowns.”

“I’ll totally only be a few minutes, but I can take you home first if you want.”

“No no, my curiosity is piqued.” 

Mavs gets the cab driver to wait for them, when they get there, and walks out to the pier. He has the beads in the inside pocket of his coat, blue and white, along with a little flat circle of white silk flowers and a silver ring made to look like waves, a little circle of solid perfume that smells like roses. 

“You are not walking out in that water,” Jimmy says when Mavs starts taking his shoes off and rolling up the legs of his suit trousers. “It’s freezing, and disgusting.” 

“Come out with me,” Mavs says, to distract himself from remembering about how gross the Potomac is. 

“It’s _freezing_.” 

“I’m not going all the way in, come on, come with me.”

“What are you _doing?_ ”

“It’s New Year’s. It’s the New Year, so I have to say hello to Yemanja.” 

“Who?”

“Yemanja. The mother of fishes. The Ocean.” He sniffs a little. “It’s not exactly the ocean, but it’s tidal, and salt water, so I guess it’s close enough she’ll still hear us, come on. She's most excellent and triumphant.” 

Mavs gives the flowers to Jimmy, to throw into the waves, watches them float on foam even as the silver ring gets carried out with the most soothing motion of the back current. 

“It’s _freezing_ ,” Jimmy repeats, ducking under his arm and leaning close, but his voice is hushed and he watches the flowers float on the waves too.

It totally non-heinous, how Jimmy fits in his arm and how warm he feels, even as the cold creeps up their legs. 

“Okay,” Mavs says finally, “hashbrowns! That diner next to your place is open 24/7 right?” 

 

“Did you know that the Chesapeake Bay is a giant impact crater that was totally made by a bolide impact millions of years ago?” Mavs mentions once they’re warming up with dry feet and plates full of breakfast. 

“Hmmm, were there dinosaurs then?” 

“Only the kinds that are chickens,” Mavs yawns. “Fuck, I think I’m sobering up, and it’s making me way sleepy. I was super into dinosaurs when I was a kid.” 

“Me too,” Jimmy says and snatches the check from the waitress with a smile, before Mavs can get it. “I was a T-rex for Halloween four years in a row.”

“No way! Me too!” Mavs gives him a fist bump. “Except I was a triceratops! I bet you were most ferocious, dude. Are there pictures?”

“Sure, but they are top secret clearance only.” 

“Awww, no way, come on.”

“Maybe one day.” 

 

It’s dawn by the time they go from the diner to Jimmy’s apartment, to get clothes for Jimmy and his laptop, because Jimmy’s bed is full of way, totally non-stellar, drunk strangers that crashed in his room since he was gone, and then from Jimmy’s back to Mavs’, where the sheets are clean. 

“I am way glad I don’t have a game today,” Mavs says, falling onto his bed. As it is he doesn’t have anything except a late optional skate and then a team meeting that’s not until 3 pm. 

“Do you do that every year? The Yemanja thing?”

“Totally,” Mavs says, pulling Jimmy against him. “Well, mostly. It was harder when I was in juniors, One year I was in Helsinki for Juniors Championships. _That_ water was most heinously cold. And then another year we were in Czech… Brno, totally landlocked, so I couldn’t. There wasn’t even a river. So bogus.”

“I’ve never been outside of the States.”

“Really?”

“Nope, never.” 

“You should come with me for our bye week in February, we’re going to Cabo.” 

“I can’t go to _Cabo_ ,” Jimmy huffs.

“Why not?” 

“I’m job searching, I can’t just… Say ‘oh sure thank you for the job offer, can I have a week of vacation a month after I start, thanks so much.’” 

“You could tell them you already have plans, plane tickets bought, and all that.”

“I’m not going to Cabo with you.” 

“Alright,” Mavs says, because Jimmy sounds irritated, and it’s late, or early, and they’re tired and grouchy and there’s no point arguing about it now. 

“Really, I can’t. Like, thank you for asking, but I just… it’s not a great job market for sociology majors and it’s hard to find entry level things that pay well enough, and I don’t want to blow an opportunity because I’m partying or something.”

“I mean,” Mavs… sort of wants to argue that partying is like… a most fundamental aspect of human nature, not something shameful, but that doesn’t seem helpful, so he says, “You are most learned and erudite dude, Jimmy. Of course people will want to hire you.” 

 

 

 

Mavs doesn’t bring Cabo up again, but he he totally doesn’t even have much time to see Jimmy in the next few weeks. The Caps have their circus trip, first, and Mavs and Jimmy text when they can but Jimmy’s busy with work and then with some kind of internship thing he got and that he says is way important and at a really innovative groundbreaking place, and Mavs is busy too, not just with the back half of the hockey season, and all the constant travel and media, but also with his spring semester class starting up. Thermodynamics totally takes more time than a 100 level history class and Mavs has to work out a most atypical arrangement to complete his labs -- the professor gives him lab privileges on his swipey card so he can let himself in whenever to complete them, and it’s way non-optimal but it works. 

Then there’s All-Stars. which Mavs only goes to because Carts claims his wrist is bothering him too much and passes on his spot, so they have to settle for Mavs and Max, and it’s way fun to hang with Max in Boston but also sometimes Mavs wishes he could use those days to sleep. And then there’s more hockey in a rush as soon he gets back, and then their bye week, and before he knows it more than a month and a half has gone by and Mavs has only seen Jimmy twice, which is most egregious and unsatisfactory -- once when he’d spent the night at Mav’s place and then left the next morning, early, for work, and another time when Mavs had met him and his friends at a bar in Alexandria. They’d made out in the back by the pool tables and then traded handies in the bathroom, but then Mavs had to leave early because he had a 7 am flight the next morning. 

Mavs finishes up his Supersaturated Solutions lab, emails the lab write up to his prof, throws his backpack over his shoulder and texts Jimmy. It’s late, but maybe he won’t be in bed. Mavs is way tired, but he misses him. 

“Did you really just send me a ‘u up?’ text?” Jimmy chirps. 

“No way?” Mavs texts back, “But also kind of yes way. I’m on campus, just finished up a lab, you want to go back to my place with me? I can pick you up?”

It’s five minutes before Jimmy texts back and he just says, “I’m not home, I’m still at work.” 

“It’s 930pm, I thought your bookstore closed at 8?”

“My other job. I’m downtown, sorry.” 

“I can come pick you up still?”

“....... You really don’t need to.”

“Dude, do you really want to take the Metro this late?”

“Ok, fine”

 

When Mavs pulls up in front of Jimmy’s office building, Jimmy hurries outside and into Mav’s car. He gives Mavs a quick kiss, leaning over the center console, and then buckles his seatbelt. “You’d better hurry up and drive, I can’t believe you drove this thing down here, we’re going to get car-jacked.” 

“Hey!” Mavs huffs, “Most unfair! It’s not like I have two cars.” Where would he even put a second car? He’d have to fight Colts for the other parking space. 

 

“You’re not wearing your watch.” Mavs notices back at his apartment, after they’ve fulfilled their quota of polite small talk with Miami and Drago and then finally made their way back to Mav’s room. Mavs is stripping him out of his layers -- sweater and corduroys and t-shirt and boxers. 

“I intern at an addiction treatment center in a _really_ shitty neighborhood in DC, Mavs, I can't wear my fucking watch to work. Even if I didn’t get mugged, it’s not an appropriate place to wear it.”

“Okay, okay,” Mavs says, “I missed you, dude, being apart so long was most non-excellent.”

Jimmy laughs a little. “I sort of thought you were getting tired of me,” 

“No way!” Mavs says, lifting him up, moving towards the bed, “Just... hockey is totally a lot, and class is non-outstanding and also boring, and they keep scheduling bogus media junk for me. But you are not non-outstanding, or boring, you’re so pretty, Jimmy, babe, can I eat you out?”

And Jimmy says “Oh good, I’m glad I’m not non-outstanding,” and shimmies out of his boxers. Jimmy looks tired, worn down around the edges with dark circles under his eyes and Mavs just wants to _spoil_ him. 

“I can get you another more low-key watch for work,” Mavs offers, after he’s gotten Jimmy to shake apart on his mouth and fingers and then come, himself, between Jimmy’s thighs. 

“I don’t need another watch.” 

“Dude, it won’t even be--”

“Mavericks. I don’t need a watch. I don’t need a cheap watch or an expensive watch, or another watch that I could sell and buy a fucking car with. I work 40 hours a week at the bookstore and then another 30 for this fucking internship that’s not even paying me, and it’s _hard_ and exhausting and emotionally draining and it feels like no matter how much I do to try to make things better or to help it doesn’t do anything, I’m not accomplishing anything, and I can’t eat watches or pay my rent or power bill with them.”

“Okay,” Mavs says, stroking his hand up Jimmy’s side. “Okay, I’m sorry, Jimmy, I’m sorry. I didn’t think, I’m sorry. I can pay your rent, too, if you need it.” 

“I don’t need you to pay my rent!” Jimmy protests in a strangled sort of cry, “I don’t need a sugar daddy!”

“Dude, no way…. I’m not your _sugar daddy_. Jimmy, that is most… ugh. Dude, I’d want to help you even if we weren’t having sex. I’m your friend, I’m just… I’m just your friend, who wants to help you because you’re totally working hard right now. And everyone needs help from someone sometimes.”

Jimmy rolls over so his face is smushed into Mavs’ chest. Mavs smoothes his hand down his side again. “Could I at least send you groceries every week? Then you wouldn’t even have to go get them if you didn’t have time.” 

“Yes,” Jimmy says, directly into Mavs’ breast bone, “that would be nice,” and then he just starts _bawling_. 

 

 

When Jimmy comes over the next week, Mavs and the rest of the D-men are all sitting around in the living room. 

“What… is happening?” Jimmy asks in confusion as he lets himself in the front door. The TV is playing soothing ocean noises, Drago has cucumbers over his eyes, Colts is putting warm river stones on Max’s back, where he’s lying on the floor, and Miami is pouring the rosé. It is most tranquil.

“Trade deadline night,” Mavs says, “want a face mask? We’re trying to find our zen.” Mavs looks down at his feet -- the nail polish is probably dry by now on his toes? He takes the little foam things off. The great thing about purple nail polish is its hides the giant bruise under his big toenail.

“I could definitely use some zen.” Jimmy sits down next to him. “Is this… playing whale songs now?”

“Whale song is very soothing,” Drago says, from underneath his cucumbers, “help me not think about Columbus.”

“You’re not going to Columbus,” Miami growls, and hands a glass of rosé to Jimmy. 

“Hey!” Colts throws himself down on the sectional. “We made a sacred vow, we _pinky swore_ , no trade talk.” 

“As much as a I love a good face mask,” Jimmy whispers into Mav’s jaw, “I can think of other ways to distract you from the trade deadline.” 

“Ah,” Mavs says, “I am suddenly way exhausted. I think we’ll turn in for the night, boys,” standing and pulling Jimmy up with him. 

Colts throws a pillow at him. 

 

“Ha,” Jimmy says when Mavs pulls his shirt off and sits down on the edge of the bed, “You thought I meant sex. I’m just going to distract you by getting you to talk about your class this semester. How’s that going?”

“So bogus,” Mavs laughs, “don’t ask me about it, it’s most non-triumphant.” 

“My day was pretty non-triumphant too. What’s wrong with your class?” 

“Well,” Mavs scratches his head, “I failed my midterm like… most egregiously, because I was taking it on the plane, half asleep after a game, and I kept getting distracted and watching Colts play COD instead, and then my professor is a heinous old dickweed who think we have to do things exactly the way he teaches the problem so I’m taking the moral high road and not doing any of his problem sets right now.”

“The moral high road, huh.”

“I’m on a righteous quest. To make him see he’s a heinous old dickweed.”

Jimmy laughs. “Uh-huh. Okay, how’s that going for you?”

“At the moment we are at a stalemate, but I will be triumphant.” 

Jimmy laughs. “Oh okay, so you like it.”

“I like it alright. Most of it’s boring, but I like the parts about Gibbs Free Energy.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Jimmy says, sinking down between Mavs’ legs. 

“Gibbs Free Energy is all the extra energy, all the extra heat, sort of, that we have left over, after the chemistry is done doing its thing.” Mavs hums, dragging his thumb over Jimmy’s bottom lip. 

“Hmmm…..”

Sometimes, Mavs feels like could look at Jimmy’s face for maybe ever. He drags his thumb over Jimmy’s mouth, lets it linger there until Jimmy takes it into his mouth, and Mavs pushes his thumb down against his tongue, fingers cupping Jimmy’s jaw while he struggles to unbutton his jeans with his other hand. “Jimmy, you’re so good.” 

Jimmy’s mouth is hot and soft and so sweet around his cock, sucking while Mavs drags his fingers through his hair. “That’s it, fuck Jimmy, you’re so good to me, babe.” 

“Come’ere, babe,” Mavs pants, after he comes, pulling Jimmy up so he’s straddling his lap and fumbling at his zipper. “Come on sweetheart, are you close? You’re were so good.” 

Afterwards, Mavs gets a washcloth, and a glass of water, hands the glass to Jimmy and says, “What was non triumphant about your day?”

“I don’t know, it feels better now.” 

“Yeah, but come on, what was your day like?”

“Just… funding bullshit. And scheduling bullshit, and then more funding bullshit. And then one of our clients OD’d which is… a shitty day.”

“Bogus,” Mavs says, softly, holding Jimmy tight.

“Yeah,” Jimmy says, voice catching, “it was pretty bogus.” 

 

The next morning, when Mavs wakes up, he checks his notifications, then falls back against his pillow, pulling Jimmy close. “Hey,” he says, “hey, I’m still here.” 

“No trade?” Jimmy asks, pulling his head up from out of his blanket cocoon. The entire left side of his hair is sticking straight up, his eyes are puffy. 

“No trade,” Mavs says, “but I’ve got to go practice.” 

 

It totally does not get any easier to see Jimmy regularly, though. They’re both still way busy, and Jimmy just looks like he’s burning himself down. Mavs goes to brunch with Jimmy’s friends one Sunday in March and Jimmy introduces him as “This is Mavs,” but kisses him on the cheek as he takes his seat at the table. Otherwise, Jimmy comes over maybe one night a week, when he can, falls into Mav’s bed and let’s Mav feed him breakfast in the morning before going to work  
. 

 

In April, Sofia comes to visit. Colts is immediately, totally smitten. Mavs takes her out to dinner, and Colts insists on inviting himself along, so Miami winds up coming too, and then Drago and with Drago comes Max and then somehow Carts winds up coming along too, which is a totally funny because you’d think he’d have other things he needed to do, as captain, but then it’s not until they’re halfway to the restaurant, that Mavs realizes if Carts is coming it’s probably because Max is coming, and this is all just part of the ongoing most outstanding and totally epic prank war. He invites Jimmy but Jimmy is teaching a night class for the center. That is slightly non-stellar, but Mavs is understanding and a most supportive boyfriend. 

Sofia doesn’t mind sharing a dinner table with a loud bunch of hockey player dudes, anyway, that’s how they all grew up. Mavs is pretty sure she finds it relaxing. 

“Where’s your cute little twink?” Ferrs asks, because he came along with Carts. 

“He has to work, and he’s not a twink,” Mavs says, throwing a bread roll at him. 

Ferrs catches it with his mouth, gives him a thumbs up, and an apologetic shrug of his shoulders, even as Drago scrunches his nose and says, “Um… sort of twink, dude, have to say.” When Carts elbows him he throws his hands up. “What? Just saying! Very slender, cute face, college boy, twink.” 

“Yes, but he doesn’t think of himself as one, so we don’t call him that,” Mavs argues. 

And then Sofia says, “In his defense, all of us perfectly normal-sized humans look small compared to all you goons.” 

“Yes,” Drago nods, “it’s true. I’m very large.”

“I would just like to point out that Carts is not defense, and I have no idea why he’s here.” Colts whines, “I thought this was a blue-line only dinner.” 

“I’m your captain, _Colton_ , I can be wherever I like.” 

Miami starts humming the chorus of that old Shakira song into his water glass. _Whenever. Wherever. We’re meant to be together_.

“He’s here because Sof’s here. Duh,” Ferrs says, eating another bread roll. 

“Why are _you_ here?”

“...Because Sof’s here….” Ferrs says, patiently. “Duh. Hi Sof, you look lovely as always. Nice Octo-cork at the X-games, by the way, sick as hell.”

“Yes, thank you, Nate. Why are we talking about Mavs’ boyfriend’s height when we should be talking about why Mavs is making him work two jobs. Mavs’, are the Caps not paying you enough? Do you want my agent’s business card?”

“He’s totally dedicated to his calling!” Mavs protests, “It’s a most admirable trait! Also, I tried to offer to pay his rent and he told me he didn’t need a sugar daddy and then he wept all over me. I tried!”

“Wow,” Miami says and pats his shoulder consolingly. 

“Instead of offering to pay his rent, like he’s a _rent boy_ , Mavs,” Max says, “why don’t you just tell him if he wants he can quit his one job so he can focus on his internship?”

“His internship is unpaid! It’s so bogus...”

“Yes,” Miami says, patting Mavs’ shoulder again, “that’s why you’d just help him take care of things why he does the internship. Then he could quit showing up at our apartment looking like he’s going to collapse in a puddle of exhaustion and despair. It’s depressing, dude.”

“Mavs.” Sofia sighs. “It sounds like his work is really important to him. You just need to put it in a way that he knows you’re not trying to like… _keep him_ or whatever, but that you’re just trying to help with his career goals. Like a good partner.” 

 

The next day Sofia flys back to Quebec, Max texts him in outrage because apparently Sofia helped distract him while Carts filled his car with gummy bears, Mavs plays a hockey game and Jimmy comes over afterwards. 

“Hey, babe.” Mavs kisses his him. 

“Why are you limping?” 

“He blocked a shot,” Colts says from the couch, “he’s fine. He’s walking it off.” 

When they go back to Mavs room, Mavs has the whole speech outlined out in his head. He’s going to start by saying how totally important Jimmy is to him, and then he’s going to tell him that he wants Jimmy to have all the opportunities Mavs has, and then he’s going to say that Mavs’ family helped Mavs and that this most odious American obsession with bootstraps is not a helpful or sound financial policy, and that the EU made unpaid internships illegal decades ago, and then he’ll offer to let Jimmy “concentrate on furthering his career uninhibited by the constraints of his ridiculous government’s laissez faire bullshit.” Anna, Ms PR lady, totally helped him with the last bit, and then Mavs tweaked it a little. And then Jimmy will get that little look in his face like he can’t believe someone is taking care of him and Mavs will kiss him and it will be _most_ excellent. 

Instead, Jimmy says “Did you have a nice dinner last night?” and when Mavs says yes, he says “The sports section of the Washington Post says you and Sofia Melnyk might be dating.” 

“No way!” Mavs squawks, "Heinous!”

“I mean, obviously you’re not,” Jimmy says, but there’s a weird little tightness to his shoulders. 

“Jimmy” Mavs says, “Babe. Sofia is my cousin. That is way gross.” 

“She’s actually not biologically related to you at all.” 

“I don’t care if she’s biologically related to little green people from Alpha Centauri. There are pictures of us in bathtubs together when we were toddlers. She used to button my coat for me before I got good at buttons. She’s my cousin. It’s gross.” 

“Okay.” Jimmy smiles. “I mean, I knew it was just heteronormative media nonsense. How’s your class going?”

So Mavs tells him about how his ongoing war with his Physics prof, the gnarly old white dude with way tedious ideas about everything and how he keeps giving Mavs Ds on his lab reports because Mavs keeps re-doing the labs or adding an extra two pages explanation of how this hideous lab from the 1980s is outdated and pointless and has terrible explanations. Halfway through, Mavs realizes he was supposed to be talking to Jimmy about _feelings_ and not having to work and so he switches to talking about Gibbs Free Energy again because that seems like a really excellent metaphor where Jimmy is the molecules and Mavs just wants him to find the balance and restfulness of a well-designed crystal lattice support structure so that his Gibbs Free Energy value… 

It’s a stretch, and Mavs is not a geochemist, but he thinks he manages the transition with some level of accuracy. Jimmy still looks totally surprised when he says, “So that’s why I was hoping we could talk about you quitting at the bookstore and just working at your internship.”

“What?” Jimmy blinks. “Is that...how we did get there? I took stats and like..pre-calc, please stop integrating things. Are those two integrals? Why are you stacking them?” 

Mavs points his stylus at the ternary diagram he brought out just for a little extra visual aide. “Well, see, pressure, here, isn’t so much the amount of physical pressure within the earth’s mantle, but totally a metaphor for the egregious mental pressure of financial concern and your long work week. I think I could be misunderstanding how they talk about entropy in this equation, geologists are weird and it’s really not how they talk about it in physics. Nat and I have argued about it before.” He sets his stylus down, “I mean Nat, my cousin, who I’m also not dating. Because she’s my cousin. Also she lives in Antarctica, and is way older than me. Also, again, she’s my cousin.”

“I know you’re not dating Natalia Volkov-DeRochier.” Jimmy smiles. 

“Does the Washington Post know it? Do I need to write them a strongly worded letter?”

“You probably shouldn’t.”

“Please let me help so you can just concentrate on your career and not 40 hours of retail nonsense on top of your career.” 

Jimmy sighs and his shoulders drop, he leans his head back and closes his eyes and finally says, “Okay. Okay, fine.”

“Thank you,” Mavs says and puts his arm around him. 

Jimmy says, “I feel like this is me giving in or something. Shouldn’t I be strong enough to do all this on my own?”

“I mean...” Mavs shrugs. “The thing is you totally could if you had to, but you don’t have to. It’s not as if, I mean...” Mavs shrugs again. “No one ever says, Mavs maybe you should just play hockey all by yourself with no trainers or coaches or teammates helping you? Also, like, no offense, dude, but your country has this totally heinous way of thinking that you only deserve something unless you’ve suffered, which is way bogus. I blame the pilgrims. They were the worst. Also, unpaid internships are illegal in the EU, Great Britain, and Canada.” 

“I know,” Jimmy says, leaning back into him. “I hadn’t thought about the fact that you have an entire staff of people that help you all the time. Spoiled.”

“And Australia,” Mavs continues. 

“You mentioned.”

“And New Zealand. And Chile, Brasil, Peru, Belize, Mexico, Malaysia, and all of Scandinavia.” 

“Why,” Jimmy asks as he pulls Mavs’ shirt off, “are you covered in bruises.”

“It’s April,” Mavs explains. “I play defense. All D-men are covered in bruises in April. It’s the seasonal progression of life.” 

 

 

The Caps make it into the playoffs and Mavs’ whole family descends on DC. It’s most excellent to see his mom and his dads and all his siblings and stuff, but despite the fact that he should have, mathematically like 57% more free time now, Jimmy is busy every time Mavs tries to invite him over to hang out with them all. 

“But don’t you have way more free time now?” Mavs asks when Jimmy says he can’t come to the one of their home games. 

“Since I’m not working like I used to be I thought I should use the time better and I’m taking a seminar to get a certification that will look good on my resume.” Jimmy replies in a reasonable tone of voice that makes Mavs feel vaguely unreasonable. 

“Okay,” Mavs says, “but it still seems like if you have 40 more hours in the week, and the seminar can’t be more than a couple hours a day...”

“Life is not math,” Jimmy snaps. 

“Sure.” Mavs says, although he thinks, fundamentally it totally _is_. But lots of people think it’s not, and Mavs is not one to judge. “But, I just kind of want you to be there.” 

“I’m sorry,” Jimmy says and actually sounds it this time, “and I’m sorry I snapped, I just… I’m sort of stressed out. And you gave me all this time and I don’t want to _waste it_. And I don’t know anything about hockey and I’ve been filling in to cover for Mandi at work, and...” 

“I get it,” Mavs says, “Maybe you can come this weekend instead.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Jimmy says softly. 

 

The Caps beat the Pens in the first series, which is great, but the first few games against the Leafs don’t look good. 

“This fucking 2nd series curse _bullshit_ ,” Colts groans as the PT injects something into his broken toe after they get the shit kicked out of them in Toronto for game three. 

“Hey,” Carts says and throws his smelly sock at him. “No Curse Talk. I’m serious. I’ll fine you.” 

“I thought they broke the curse in --”

“No curse talk!” Carts shouts. 

 

Despite the fact that Dad and Papa tell him he is doing an excellent job, and that they are most proud of him, and despite how way soothing it is to talk strategy with them and his siblings, and despite the fact that his mom totally makes everything better just _in general_ , and despite the fact that, whenever Carts isn’t looking Drago throws shoes over his shoulder and Colts snuck in a bunch of sage and burned it in the locker room and over all their gear and the pucks…

They still lose in game six. 

Mavs hobbles home to his apartment, and Jimmy shows up the next day after Mavs’ family has all flown out with promises to see each other again soon in Madeira now that the summer is fully underway. Jimmy looks vaguely sheepish but doesn’t say anything about his seminar or missing the playoffs, just crawls into bed with Mavs and says, “You look like shit.” 

“I feel like shit,” Mavs says and buries his face in Jimmy’s hair so he doesn’t have to think about it. 

 

“Will you come see me this summer in Madeira?” Mav asks the next morning.

“I can’t just go on vacation.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not that simple, I can’t just… go somewhere.” 

“You don’t even have any pets to find someone to pet sit for,” Mavs says. Sometimes he thinks maybe Jimmy thinks it’s not that simple because he’s never done it before. Because it’s actually _way_ simple. You just go somewhere, and then you’re there! 

“I’d have to get days off. I can’t just… they’re not just going to let me have vacation.”

“How….exactly….” Mavs says, slowly, because he feels like he’s getting angry, but not at Jimmy, and he doesn't want Jimmy to think he’s angry at him. “How can they expect to not give you vacation days when they’re not even paying you? That is ….” Mavs splutters trying to find the words, “that is most heinously bogus.”

“It’s not that they won’t, but if I ask, they’ll say yes, but then they’ll be making a little note in their mind like, ‘asked for vacation even though this is a very important internship opportunity. Possibly not serious enough, bad work ethic.’” 

“Why,” Mavs asks, “does your boss sound like they work on Coach’s Corner. That’s so bogus. The most bogus thing. It’s bogus in hockey but, like, I get paid millions of dollars to play a game that I think is fun so it’s totally easy to ignore it. It’s really really really bogus when you get paid nothing and work in a field where people _need_ you and people easily burn out. You deserve vacation. Don’t you work at some place that’s all about mindfulness and getting rid of toxic-stress environments that lead to addiction? That’s what you’re always talking to me about. They can’t be totally fucked up evil Wall Street dudes you’re working for if they believe in those things.” 

“No,” Jimmy sighs, “they’re not, they’re nice, I just don’t want to disappoint them. Everyone is always working so hard there, and they want it to succeed so much and I can’t just waltz away to Bali or something.”

“Madeira,” Mavs corrects, “way shorter plane flight. You don’t have to say where you’re going either, it’s none of their business, you can just say you’re going to visit friends or family or something. Anyway you could just ask? I don’t want to go the whole summer without seeing you, but Katya and I always share a trainer in Madeira and Colts has already sublet this place out for the summer so I can’t stay here.”

“I’ve never been on vacation before,” Jimmy hedges.

“It will be totally bodacious. Plus, you could get outside the US, put a stamp on your passport! Madeira’s way nice, and the waves are stellar in the summer. And I’m going to miss you.” 

“It’s not me being selfish,” Jimmy tries. “People take vacations all the time.” 

“It’s definitely not,” Mavs agrees. “And they totally do.” 

 

 

Going home is totally easier knowing that he’ll see Jimmy again soon. 

Despite the fact that Jimmy mostly believes, like 99% of the time that he talks to Mavs about it on the phone, that his work totally wants him to have vacation, and that’s it’s not just a most heinous trap to justify writing a non-stellar recommendation letter, and that the closer that it’s gotten to his flight, Jimmy’s gotten more and more stoked, when Mavs picks him up at the airport he looks most unhappy and tense. 

Mavs kisses him in the terminal’s de-boarding area, and Jimmy kisses Mavs while they wait for his luggage to show up, but Jimmy’s totally nervous in the car, and more nervous through dinner, which goes mostly non-atrociously? Even though his Dad gets him to laugh a few times, and Mavs can tell his family likes him, he can also tell that Jimmy’s way anxious and they’re trying to make him less anxious, and mostly Mavs just wishes he knew what was wrong. 

The next morning, Mavs gets up with the rest of the house to catch the stellar morning surf. “Do you want to come with us?” he asks, peeking under the pile of blankets to look at Jimmy whose hair is a mess and whose face has pillow marks on one side. 

“I don’t know how how to surf.” 

“Dude! I can totally teach you!” 

“Maybe another day, I’m going to sleep some more, I’m kind of jetlagged.”

“Okay,” Mavs says and tries not to feel disappointed. “Maybe you can come out with me tomorrow.”

 

After surfing there’s breakfast… or brunch… really, and then Mavs says, “You wanna go walk around the botanical gardens with me today? They’re most resplendent.” 

Jimmy seems relieved to get out of the house, and they spend the afternoon looking at plants and walking around holding hands and Jimmy gets to tell him about the seminar that he finished and how he totally implemented it into one of his work’s programs, and that so far it seems like it’s going most auspiciously, and he totally got a compliment for it from the director. Mavs teaches him a few words of Portuguese for when they’re walking around town, like thanks dude and you’re welcome and how much and can I have a latte please, etc., and plus there are a bunch of funny looking but totally bodacious ducks on the water at the Gardens and they spend a lot of the afternoon sitting and watching them. Jimmy makes up stories for each of them, way _Indiana_ stories, like this is Darla who works at the Rite Aid and this one’s Randy, the ducks’ only diesel mechanic who heinously overcharges for his services. 

They don’t get back until almost dinner time, because Mavs takes them the long way through Funchal so they can drive around see the town. Dinner isn’t ever anything other than casual chaos. “It’s every man for himself, dude,” Mavs tells Jimmy, “just grab a plate, we’re probably going to all wind up eating down by the beach.” 

Dinner’s excellent, except for the part where Mom asks Jimmy about where he’s from in Indiana and he says something kind of self deprecating about it and totally changes the subject back to Madeira and how pretty he thought Funchal was and Mavs kind of wishes he’d told them all about the ducks instead. His mom would love that and also it’s most non-excellent to think someone in the world thinks his mom is the type of lady who judges people about where they grew up, instead of a lady who once lived in a tent for a year. 

And then Mavs’ phone rings. “Oh, bogus,” he says looking at it, lead already sinking in his stomach, “I have to go take this.” 

It’s totally quick, there’s no beating around the bush, Williams is a gnarly old dude in a suit but he’s mostly non-heinous most of the time and he’s always totally straight forward. It’s all just thanks for your time with us, etc etc, right to the point. But right after Williams hangs up, Mavs’ agent calls too, and they have a most onerous load of details to work out about Calgary and by the time the phone call’s done, he’s totally wandered down the beach and up the path and through the garden and back to the side part of the house and through the gate into the little closed off back herb garden and Jimmy’s there, with a book, looking the most miserable, instead of down on the beach with the bodacious sunset and Mavs’ family. 

“Hey,” Mavs says and sits down next to him and Jimmy just hands him a book. 

“What’s this?” 

‘It’s one of my text books from a Queer Theory class I took my junior year,” Jimmy answers. As Mavs opens it up, the pages just fall open, spine cracked, to chapter 3. The pages are totally filled with marginalia and notes and there’s a full page picture of Papa and Dad, grinning together in a photo that was on the cover of TIME a while back. 

“Oh,” Mavs says. 

“I just thought. I mean, you ought to know that I wrote a paper. About your dads. My junior year. I didn’t know… I mean I didn’t you were you, when we were…”

“I know,” Mavs says and takes the book from him. “Jimmy, I totally know you’re not dating me because I’m famous.” 

“I know you know that!” Jimmy huffs, “I just… this is really weird for me. Just being here. Hanging out with them. They’re _icons_.”

“I mean, they’re my super lame boring dads. They tell dad jokes. They make bad puns.”

“You think that, because you’re you, and you grew up in this family full of these greater than life magnificent people and everyone in your family just does whatever they set their mind too and they’re talented and fearless and famous and _legendary_ so you don’t even notice because you’re just like that too, but to the rest of us normal people they’re unreal and untouchable.” He sniffs a little and blinks some and then looks up at Mavs. “Sorry, I know you don’t like talking about how famous you are. What was your phone call about?” 

“Um. Dude… I got traded. It’s way heavy.” 

“Oh,” Jimmy says and then his whole face just crumples. “Oh.” He sniffs. “Well, I’m… I’m glad I came then, and got to see you.”

“Yeah, I’m totally glad you came too. It’s way easier to talk about things in person.”

“Yeah I get it, I… I’ll be fine, you know, I mean, the internship qualifies as a job, really, so I don’t even have to explain any gaps in employment history and I’m sure I can find a different bookstore, so I mean. I mean, like you said, you’re just a friend, helping out a friend, so you’re not under any financial obligation...” 

“Um…. yeah,” Mavs says, “I mean, you’re way ahead of me, dude, but Calgary totally has bookstores, I’m sure lots of them would definitely hire you, but I don’t really… I mean they must have programs in Calgary or associated with the university there, where you could get some sort of similar internship? Or maybe an actual job with one of them since this internship has gone so well? Or, I mean I know you’ve totally been thinking about it and I bet University of Calgary has a bunch of grad student programs you could look at, one of them is probably a most excellent fit for where you want to focus.” 

“Why…” Jimmy looks up at him, “Why would I go to grad school at the University of Calgary?”

“Because?” Mavs says, feeling sort of lost, “that’s where I got traded to? I’m going to the Flames. It should be mostly non-heinous? Sof will visit a lot because Banff’s got most outstanding snowboarding, and Katya plays for the Inferno, so it will be excellent to be near family again, and we totally could get a place together and…”

“You want me to move to Calgary with you?”

“Totally? I thought that’s what we were talking about?”

“I thought you were breaking things off?”

“Why would I do that?”

“I have no idea, Mavs, but I have no idea why you’ve been wasting your time with me anyway? I don’t know why you would want me to come to Calgary with you! That’s what I was trying to say before -- I’ve been spending my entire time here trying to figure out what you see me in me in the first place.” 

“Because you’re my boyfriend, and I like you?”

“Arrggggghhhhh,” Jimmy says and buries his head in his hands in frustration. 

“I _like_ you,” Mavs says, because, honestly, why else would he want Jimmy to meet his whole crazy family and walk around botanical gardens with him. He tries again, “I mean I like _you_. I mean I totally love you, but I also like who you are as a person. I think you’re way cute when you smile. You’re totally funny and smart. You’re nice to hang out with. We totally like the same kinds of movies. I like how stoked you get when you talk about stuff you care about it even though I don’t really get it all the times. You totally care about the things that are important to you and you have this like… _most unrivaled_ drive to try to make things better and I just… I just like who you are, as a person. That’s why I like you. That’s it -- all the normal reasons normal people like each other. I totally don’t need some kind of approval from the Canadian Olympic committee to think you’re a babe, or for ESPN to sign on off all the reasons I want you to come with me.” 

Jimmy wipes his eyes with the back of his hands and says, “I’m your boyfriend! You love me! And were you going to tell me any of that at any time?!

“I mean I did… I told you all that before.” 

“You absolutely did not.” 

“No way! I totally did! Dude, I most distinctly remember -- when we were talking about the bookstore and I talked to you about how enthalpy and entropy are related in mineral stability and crystal lattice shapes.”

“Mavs! I understood nothing you were talking about. But I know it definitely wasn’t a state of the relationship talk.”

“No way, it totally was? I…. why else would I tell you about crystal lattice structures?”

Jimmy just stares at him.

“That’s…. I’m not a _material scientist_ ,” Mavs whines, “That’s totally barely one step up from engineering. I definitely wouldn’t talk about it if I wasn’t most _righteously_ serious about how much I want to be with you.”

“Um,” Katya interrupts from where she’s standing at one of the hedges by the path down to the water, “Um, sorry to interrupt. Mavs, the dads just sent me out to check on you, the trade’s blowing up on the news, they wanted to make sure you were okay and I told them I’d go check on you. Big sister privilege.”

“Um… I’m fine.” Mavs says, “we’re totally cool.” 

“Look,” Katya continues, “it’s none of my business, but, Jimmy, I know we can all be a lot and kind of overwhelming, but I just want you to know we like you a lot, the family, we think you’re _great_ , and also… don’t let this doofus and his PR team trick you. I know he looks cool on TV but underneath the trying very hard to be not look like he tries hard hair, he’s a giant, GINORMOUS dweeb.” 

“Thanks, Katya. Can you go away now? Go tell the dads I’m fine.”

Jimmy wipes his eyes again and says, “No, no, stay, I want to hear about how you’re a dweeb.”

“One time,” Katya smiles, “he cried for two weeks straight because Dad told him he wasn’t going to be a triceratops when he grew up.” 

“Can you not? You’re such a dickweed.”

“He sucked his thumb until he was 5.” 

“Katya, this is so non-bodacious.” 

“He used to talk to trees. He failed his driver’s test the first three times he took it. He cried the first time he went away to hockey camp not because he was homesick or scared but because they he didn’t like their nanaimo bars. He once thought a piece of seaweed was a jellyfish and screeched in such a high pitch he terrified the dogs.” 

“Bells is totally my favorite sister. She has all these amazing non-sea-haggish qualities that my other sister lacks.” 

“Ha! You wish! I’ve always been your favorite and you know it! Anyway, I’m going to let you two kiddos work this out, but you seem like a great guy, Jimmy, okay? None of us would be sad if you chose to stick around.” 

Jimmy stares at the empty doorway for a few seconds after Katya leaves. “She’s really good at that whole...” he waves his hand. “...that whole thing she just did,” he says finally. “Is that why she’s Captain Canada?” 

“Yeah,” Mavs says, sitting down next to him. “Pretty much. She’s totally great.” 

“I can’t believe I missed the whole first boyfriend DTR talk because I chose to take Stats instead of Calc II and you tried to tell me you love me with integrals.” 

“I totally had it all planned out better but you threw me off guard with all the heinous cousin shit!

“I love you too.” 

“Most excellent!” Mavs says, feeling something loosen in his chest and beginning to see the bright side of Calgary. “And I love you too… no math this time.” 

“Even though I’ve never been in the Olympics.”

“Even though.”

“And in fact, I’m literally never going to win anything in my life.”

“You could totally win a work raffle or something.”

Jimmy punches him in the arm but he’s grinning and Mavs pulls him close. “Katya’s right,” Jimmy says, “you are a gigantic dweeb.” 

“Are you going to come surfing with me tomorrow morning?” 

“I don’t know how to surf.” 

“It’s okay.” Mavs kisses him. “It’s way fun to learn.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you are a linguist that cares about Bill and Ted’s specific dialect, and its linguistic purity and accuracy, I apologize. I know I cheated and that Bill and Ted don’t ever use surfer slang like “stoked” or “way” -- but since Mavs is an actual surfer from a family of surfers, I thought it kind of unlikely he wouldn’t have incorporated some of that. 
> 
> If you are a geochemist who cares about how Mavs mangles your field of study in a botched attempt at a love confession -- I am also sorry. If it makes you feel any better, his physics prof weeps himself to sleep every night.
> 
> Many many thanks to Dangercupcake for editing my commas and cheering me on!


End file.
